Tag Archives: Todd English

While the number of new restaurants opening this fall is exciting, it’s also a little worrisome. Can top chefs and restauranteurs still maintain a hands-on, personal approach while building out more and more new places? Unfortunately, one of the most notorious examples in the negative has been Todd English, the chef who had all of Boston swooning with his enchanting Mediterranean place Olives in the ’90s, then fell flat with the bland W hotel version of the same in 2000s New York.

The latest addition to his cadre of projects does little to rectify that situation. While the French-Mediterranean food at Ça Va is solid and the atmosphere an improvement on almost everything else in the theater district, as a whole the restaurant comes off as slick and corporate, like a fragrance that’s been focus-grouped into the generic. Even the name betrays a certain tone-deafness: “ça va” can be loosely translated as “it’s okay,” versus “ça va bien”: “it’s going well.” (more…)